Tuesday, November 29, 2011

The Past Few Days...

Sunday
I just had to snap a couple pictures of these photogenic kiddos on the stage after worship...
Judah loves playing Brett's cajon and my girls love to "babysit" Judah...
Afterwards, a group of us grabbed some lunch at the Mall Food Court. Here's the "kids' table"...
Monday
Back to life (and homework)...
This guy lives the "hard knock life"... ha...
Tuesday
Audrey Claire came to hang out while her mama took her little brother to a doctor's appointment. She wanted to paint my nails and have a pretend birthday party...
Afterwards, I made my dreaded SAMs Club trip... I try to make things last a good month or so (ha). Buying in bulk is the way to do it with our crew... Speaking of my hungry hippos... Here's our after school walk home...


Sisters... aww, sigh...

When homework was mostly finished and Ms. Shelly was finished tutoring, it was time to head to our first Imago Dei Church Baptism Service. A gracious church provided a space for us to gather in which was fabulous. We began our time together with a potluck dinner, followed by worship, the Word, testimony, prayer and then, the baptism...




We all huddled around the baptistry to celebrate together...
Afterwards...

A hint of our time together...

Saturday, November 26, 2011

Tryptophan Week

Tuesday, we decided to go ahead and skip school especially since the weather through the mountains (i.e. rain and fog) was questionable. So, after dropping off a pumpkin spice cake for the fabulous WFES faculty and staff luncheon, off we went... Not without Starbucks of course...
Our kids are fairly good travelers... especially with the aid of modern day television and dvd players in vehicles...
One of our sights along the way, which was fascinating: Pilot Mountain...
I needed a break from Titus in my lap, so he enjoyed a stint in the back with the kids...
He's one of the gang...
Our trip lasted 7 hours and 15 minutes (woo hoo - compared to 10 or 11 hours!). We enjoyed a some time taking over Mamaw and Papaw's house. Of course, we had to go out for Mexican food one day - our pre-Turkey meal. (Victoria rode the Clifford mobile)
Titus loved to sit at their living room window...
Or anywhere close to me... a bit clingy.
Wednesday evening, we enjoyed going to Artemis Christian Church (Tony's parents' church). Pastor Jeff had Tony share a little about how things at IDC Raleigh are going. Then we walked through Romans 7...
Thursday morning (Thanksgiving Day), we hit the road for Georgetown to spend the day with cousins!

[I was a bit under the weather, but fortunately walked into a clinic there and was able to be seen for strep throat and some fluid in my ear (pre-cursor to ear infection). Got some antibiotics and was good to go.]

Joshua kept talking about eating the "big chicken" - ha.
Tony with his sister Lisa...
The boys playing soccer in the backyard...
"Cuh-shins"
I'm loving Manny's shirt, "Seek Justice" (www.ijm.org)
Phase 10 and Balderdash were the games of the day :-)
The kids had a blast playing together...
As well as posing for the camera(s)...

I was given the nickname "Dog Whisperer" since they seemed to flock to me... We had house rotations for the dogs... Titus spent half the day in the van (but did great since it turned out to be a beautiful day!).
Eyasu and Derara
(a.k.a. Joshua and Simon)
Now with Beniam... lovin' his cousins
Have we mentioned Joshua is quite the character? Ha.

Angela snuggled next to Aunt Lisa... sweet
MEANWHILE, back at our house in North Carolina, I'm told around 30 people from our Imago Dei Church family gathered for quite the feast! Michael fried a turkey!
Look at this spread! (We arrived home to leftovers, which were delicious!)

I love this picture of the IDC children sitting on our back wall - precious!
Back in Kentucky, we gathered up for some family pictures...
The Merida's








Friday morning, we had the hit the road back for North Carolina. Another short and sweet visit with family passed. We are so thankful for our family and friends! God has richly blessed us! I hope you all had a nice Thanksgiving!

Meanwhile, I'll leave you with some fun...
We discovered that Pilot Mountain is in Mount Airy which is where Andy Griffith is from! We were curious on our drive to KY but didn't look it up until our drive back. Welcome to Mayberry!
Tony and Lisa were trippin' on tryptophan and therefore busted some old school Fat Boyz...

We got to watch some of Noah's play he was in earlier this fall, "Guys and Dolls". So fun!